Pros and Cons Of Using Wordpress To Power Your Main Business Website
By Leigh Hunt • Category: Grow Your Online Business, SEO & Traffic, Social Networking, Web Design & DevelopmentPros
- Wordpress is free. Your only real costs are your hosting account.
- It’s easy to install, especially if you use a hosting company that has a ‘one-click’ installation option.
- You can choose from 100’s of free themes for your website. Themes are templates that once uploaded to your server can be activated at the click of a button. One click and hey presto, you’ve got a nicely designed website!
If you learn a bit of HTML and CSS you can also customise the look and feel of your website as much as you like. Don’t be alarmed by this. It’s pretty easy. If I can do it, so can you!
You can buy premium wordpress themes if you want something a bit special, but even these are inexpensive. Typically costing less than $100. - You can change the entire look of your website by uploading a new theme and then clicking a button. Very neat!
- Wordpress is a blogging platform, so it encourages interaction between you and your readers/customers. It compliments the way people buy, which is from people. By adding a blog to your website your customers and potential customers can get to know you better. They’ll then be more likely to buy from you.
The Internet of now is changing the way we communicate and by learning how to use Wordpress you’ll be getting in on the ground floor. - There are literally hundreds of Plugins that you can add to your site to improve it’s functionality and usability. Plugins are applications written by third parties to make your life easy. They include applications to help with SEO, chat forums, bookmarking tools, audio, video and lots, lots more. If you run an ecommerce site, there is even an ecommerce plugin to help you sell your products. You can activate and deactivate plugins at the click of a button. So if you decide a plugin is not right for your site, you can get rid of it very quickly.
- You don’t need to know any HTML or other coding language, although if you learn a little you’ll have much more freedom to customise your website.
- Did I mention, it’s free?!
Cons
- Wordpress often release new versions. And every time there is a new release you have to upload it to your server. This is a little time consuming and you have to make sure that you back-up your files and database in case anything should go wrong during the upgrade. Imagine the nightmare if you lost everything on your site!
- There’s not that much support for Wordpress, although I’ve always found the answers I need browsing their support forum.
- Some themes conflict with some plugins, so you could end up changing your site’s theme and then have some of your plugins not work. Could be annoying if, for example, you had an active forum that just stopped working.
- Plugins are created by third parties and so you don’t really have any guarantee that the plugin will be around forever.
- There is the risk of losing data if you’re not careful updating Wordpress after a new release. Also, some plugins run into problems when a new version of Wordpress is uploaded. The creator of the plugin will normally rectify any issues pretty quickly though.
Wordpress is an open source project and as such there is a real sense of camaraderie and community amongst it’s users and developers. The functionality and flexibility of Wordpress as a publishing platform is improving all the time as new plugins are created in response to user wants and needs.
Personally, I love it. It has revolutionised my online presence. It could do the same for you.
I’ll update this list with new pros and cons as and when I think of/discover them.
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Leigh Hunt is a proud work at home mum and serial Internet Mumpreneur. She's been running online businesses since 2002 and absolutely LOVES it! She loves it so much that she decided to start this webzine to support other mums (and dads) starting and running businesses online. She has finally embraced her passion!
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Thanks Leigh for this detailed analysis you did a great job. Thanks for sharing.
Hello, I wanted to take the time
to thank you for putting together
such a useful blog.
Thanks.
Love your website. Just found it. Do you have any other websites I can check out? Anyways, great work. keep it up!!!
You’ve pointed out good and bads nicely. It was a nice reading. Very useful.
Yes. This is an important resource for small business owners.I will link your page to my blog for site visitors to benefit. Thanks.
Thanks for this lovely post leigh- Very useful info. I will def keep look for more like these.
Regards
Nel
http://www-easy-create-cash.com
Isn’t this just why we hate paypal!
They know there’s a prioblem - their problem
They hide it for 24 hours
For 2 days e-commerce sites are being made to look like scammers.
Finally they half admit it.
Read about it yoruself here….http://launchworkshop.com/paypal-meltdown-creates-havoc-for-ecommerce-websites/
I found your blog via Google while searching for business personal marketing plan and your post regarding nternet Based Businesses looks very interesting to me. Just wanted to drop you a quick note to say thank you for a great resource.There is nothing else like your site on the net today. My friends are just going to love this site once I let them know about it.
The thing I love about Wordpress is the portability of the system, for most programmers it is very easy to manipulate.
However, the templating still requires a real learning curve, and the search and in-post html need work IMHO/
Another great PRO that i would like to point out for wordpress over other blogging utilities is that it’s very easy to put ADS and affiliate programs!!! = Money money
Thats my love with wordpress!
Hi Leigh, I am a great fan of word press blogs. Just reading through your posts here, I think you have some fantastic information, and great to see you sharing it with the women of the web!!
Do you generally use word press blogs yourself? I know that as a newer internet marketer that they have given me a great basis that was relatively easy to work with to get sites up and running. Do you have any tips to make the most of our using word press blogs?
Warmly Lisa
working with Shaune Clarke
I came across your website today, and I love it. It makes me think about something that I learned and have tried to follow a long time ago which is, “If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way - if you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.” Keep up the good work.
Thanks for such a comprehensive analysis of the pros and cons of Wordpress. With all the plugins, it looks like Wordpress is evolving to become much more than just a blogging platform. Something to watch out for.
Thanks for the useful info Leigh. It’s nice to see a strong woman that can manage her kids and career at the same time. Absolutely wonderful…I’ll be keeping an eye on your blog.
Nice analyisis of Wordpress. Currently I use Blogger and am pretty happy with it. I do like having the option of Adsense put on my Blog also. But Wordpress has some really good strong points you have identified.
BTW, Nice site